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WHAT IS BITSTRIPS?“Bitstrips for schools is an educational and safe web service

that empowers students to make and share great comics without drawing a line, and lets teachers unlock the educational power of comics” (According to www.osapac.org/db/view_software.php?id=432)

-Bitstrips enables students to create comics based on the current Ontario education curriculum.

-Teachers can create engaging assignments in the form of interactive comic strips.

-Students can create cartoon characters of themselves, which teachers can place in lessons. Students are literally inside their own schoolwork!

-Students can collaborate on re-mixable comic strips for groupwork assignments.

-Teacher-made lessons can be rated and shared with other teachers through Bitstrips' online assignment library.

Why Bitstrips?Student engagement: The best reason to use comics in the classroom is that kids love comics! They connect with cartoons and comic strips in an uncanny way that can be harnessed for learning.

Literacy: Comics are a proven tool for building language skills, and are particularly powerful in building boys’ literacy.

ICT experience: As an Informational Communications Technology, Bitstrips for Schools encourages students to collect, organize and synthesize a variety of visual and textual information. It develops media literacy by engaging students in a collaborative and social online experience.

Multi Platforms: Available as a Facebook app, in the App Store for iPhones, or the Google Play Store for Android devices.

GETTING STARTED1. Go to www.bitstripsforschools to sign up. All Ontario

teachers get free access to the program for themselves and their class.

2. Click the “ACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT FOR ONTARIO TEACHERS” icon.

CREATING ACCOUNTAfter activating your account, choose a classroom code that

your students will require to login. It must be a maximum of 8 letters.

Now that you’ve created your classroom code, which is the access code for your student’s to login, you can create your own class. To do this, click the link “add students now”. You can add multiple students at once in an excel spreadsheet or one at a time.

Add students

EDITING YOUR AVATARAfter adding your class, they will now be able to login to the

class by going to www.bitstripsforschools/login and using the classroom code.

The next step one the students love… Creating their own avatar!They can choose all the physical characteristics of their avatar and change it whenever they like. To do this, click “edit my avatar” and go through vast selection of choices.

CREATING STUDENT ACTIVITIESTeachers can either create their own activity for students or go

to the activity library. Activities are sorted by subjects and division level (primary, junior, and intermediate)

Click here to browse activity library

Click here to create your own activity

OTHER IMPORTANT POINTSTeachers have the option of viewing all comics submitted by students

before they are published for the rest of the class to view. This can be done when you are setting up your class list by selecting the option to view all work before publishing.

Students and teachers can log in at home or at school by using the classroom code (students) and email and password for teachers.

Many of the activities in the activity library are cross-curricular, enabling multiple curriculum connections to occur in each activity.

For more information or to view a video tutorial, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWXJ-F_TSus

REFERENCEShttp://www.osapac.org/db/view_software.php?id=432

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Biq5zf2D6M

http://www.bitstripsforschools.com

http://www.bitstrips.com